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Tuesday, 30 August 2016

August Wrap-up and Future Plans

I've never actually done a wrap up post except for when I've done Camp NaNo. I may never do one again. But this time I am.

My writing has been quite slow this month, but I've made a bit of progress. Girl of the Rumours is now sitting on 42,000 and has somewhere around a third to go. I'm not quite sure about the pacing yet. so that could change things. My goal is to roughly finish this draft by the end of the month, so that I can prepare for NaNoWriMo the next month. As for how that will go, I really have no idea.

This month I took the bold step of giving my first chapter to a couple of writer friends for feedback. It was mostly encouraging. One person found my main character a bit annoying and immature, which I was afraid of, so I know I need to do some fixing there. The other reader seemed to connect with her fairly well though. And I now know a few other ways I need to tweak my characters to make them across right.

The marking are hardly visible to the camera.

One of the best parts was actually getting mailed a printed copy of the chapter covered with red pen marks. Calling that good might sound strange, but it really was. Firstly, some of the marking were really positive. Secondly, I knew it was far from perfect and I got to see what improvements another pair of eyes can make. I'm less worried about it being badly written, editing will improve it. And there wasn't really a huge number of marks. Just looking at it again I can see other improvements.

There's a chance I'll be looking for beta readers in February. But that really depends on how much time I spend on other projects. I had hoped to have Lady of Courage at least half written by now, but I hadn't planned on doing all these rewrites. And my NaNoWriMo project could flow on into December if it goes well, but isn't short.

Now that come to the question of what I'm doing for NaNoWriMo. Joane, from Girl of the Rumours, had caught my attention so much I decided I needed a sequel to continue her story. Once I got that idea into my head, I came up with other reasons a sequel is needed. So that's what I'm hoping to do and that's why I've had to do these rewrites. It's hard to write a sequel if the first book hasn't got a certain ending.
Another thing that might slow my writing down is my sewing. I'm making a fancy dress which I'll be wearing to a couple of weddings. It's been really fun so far. Over the last couple of weeks I drafted a pattern and sewed up a test in cheap fabric. (Though both it and the dress fabric were actually gifts.) Then on Friday I dyed my fabric to change the dreadful salmony pink, to a pretty lavender. That was fun and a bit smelly. And yesterday I cut it all out and did the same from a purple sheet for a underlining. And that's enough because this isn't a sewing blog.

Lastly I'm participating in a challenge all September. Read no fiction. That should give me more writing time, and more time to read the kind of serious books I get a lot of ideas from. I'll let you know how that goes. It might help me refocus on what's really important.